Kai – the Lone Wolf

Those who have known me for quite sometimes should know that I usually design while sculpting, and when the idea is stuck, i just stop to gather more informations and motivations. Just like the others, i made this sculpt (Kai – the lone wolf) the same way. Its just that because the project is so difficult, i have to put it on hold for the whole week (also that my daughter had been in the hospital last week so maybe it was also the reason).

The more cherish i am after finish this sculpt, the more challenging it has been throughout the process… Well, he’s just a samurai so it should be easy right? But he’s also our 3rd Samurai sculpt, and to make an extremely interesting Samurai character is too difficult for me, at least at the start.
But due to the fact that i have put a lot of thought on it, i remember exactly how he was created!

Second Cosplay – the lone wolf

From the start, the idea is to generate another outfit for our new project – Kaizilla. But getting inspired by Godzilla is only one of a rare occasion that i decided to create characters based on others’ story. Since i’ve always keen on creating the characters of my own, i’ve tried to do as much research as possible before starting this one. Also because i love samurai theme so much, I just don’t allow myself to create a Samurai character that didn’t push me to my max! And this one really brings the most out of me! I call him: Kaimurai – the lone wolf, or the lonely boy

Previously, we got Butora – The Tiger Samurai (also our 1st 3d sculpting keycap) and Sam the Keyborg. Both were good and tbh, my level back then just couldn’t create anything better. While in Butora, we can see that most of the signature helmet details are all done in the most stylized way as possible, we did try our best to push those details on Sam towards a more “Samurai-style” – with bigger helmet ear, a half-face mask inspired of the ghost of Tsushima character… There is 1 thing i haven’t tried yet – the fur helmet (that what i search on Pinterest, since English is not my native language and i did a messy job studying it when i was young so please just spare my fault), and there will never be a better chance to design it than sculpting it on the new angle (we call this angle like this to distinguish with the other, more popular angle).

Outfit and Accessories

And here are my designing ideas (also written on this picture) that also lines up as in my thinking and designing process:

• Fur helmet on Kai head: I make the head a bit more square so that Kai can be a bit more cunning in this theme, otherwise its a normal “fur helmet” for me to start with.
• Then i tried different horns, at 1st these horns supposed to serve as the “wakidate”, but then i want the horns to run backwards as dragon horns so i made another, more traditional wakidate up front
• The Maedate: was quite easy for me to decide – the Sun – the most significant symbol in the Eastern countries’ culture (or at least in Vietnam, i didn’t double check the fact but hopefully I’m right)
• The base body: I re-use the Skulli body, just change the pipe to the rope – this part is not important since it’ll be away from our eyesight when displaying the cap and i just want something to emphasize the overall theme.

At first i went with the 2 chest pieces on both sides, the look it gave me was quite good so that later i just wanna push myself by putting the dragons head there – a designing challenge for myself while at the same time i just think that it’s really fun to design sth really different like that (although our style has been quite stand out alrdy), This is also the point when i decided to combine the Sun and Dragon character onto the Samurai theme. Just like the Sun, the Dragon is also a holy symbol that can only be used for the King back then. I would call him the Royal Samurai, since both the themes fit really well.

However after those failed prints, the dragon heads are just too small, so i have to re-design the whole keycap so that it can make its way to the market – I don’t want to bury this idea this time, everything were too good to be abandoned. I was quite panic back then, i stayed awake till 3am 2 days before to create the sketch alone. So i re-work the ideas, then finally settle with a Dragon on the side holding a Pearl – a quite common image. It’s just that i sculpted it in a “not-really-stylized-style), one of the purpose is to make the dragon looks just like its alive (a pet of Kai to be exact), but also i just don’t wanna have another sculpt that didn’t match the style stay on the same cap… It looks good after all.

Would you like to have your name engraved?

The rest is the name/chest plate: Just to have a name there – I’m thinking about having the 1st letter of the clw on it in the future – or people name on it to have a more personalized keycap in the future (yes, in the commissions but don’t worry, we won’t do commissions soon enough 😅 ) – And i would say you can see the rest on the sculpt.

Happy reading! I wanted to share my thoughts for Kai – the Lone Wolf since I’m really excited with this project.
Feel free to discuss more about this or ask us more question in chit-chat… or even email 😉

Pizzza,